Inching ever closer to having 20,000 3D printers in its network, this June 3D Hubs has crossed the 17,000 mark – 17,410, to be precise, connected 3D printers in over 150 countries. By September-October of this year, we could expect the world’s largest 3D printing service network to break 20,000, a remarkable rate of growth where more than 1000 printers are added every single month.
With June upon us, 3D Hubs has released its latest trend report, giving us an up-to-date snapshot of the shifts it has observed in its global network. First off, they have a brand new trend that tracks where users are sourcing their 3D models and designs from. They’re tracking popular 3D content platforms and this June, their report reveals that Thingiverse is the most used source for 3D content, with 56% of its users preferring the MakerBot-owned portal. No surprise there, but there is a surprise in the second-most used portal. It’s good ol’ Google. Users, especially those unfamiliar with dedicated 3D content portals are probably searching for what they need directly on Google.
Rounding-off the top five sources for 3D content are Forums – particularly Reddit as well as manufacturer-drive forums, Instructables – the popular DIY hub, and 3D Hubs itself. TinkerCAD, MyMiniFactory and GrabCAD are just behind. It’ll be interesting to see how this trend changes in future reports. As the 3D Hubs network grows, different segments of users will prefer different platforms, and ease-of-use, accessibility, availability of 3D content would be determining factors in driving usage. With 3D Warehouse, the world’s largest repository of 3D models, recently teaming up with Materialise, Thingiverse could have a new challenger.
In the fiercely fought desktop 3D printer segment, there’s a new champion – and it’s an underdog. The Form 1+, Zortrax M200, and DeltaWASP have all been upstaged by the highly customizable delta-style, Kossel XL . In just a month, the European 3D printer, available as a kit, has shot up to a winning 4.84 rating among users. The smaller version, the Kossel Mini, and the Belgian Velleman K8400, are the only new entries in the top 20. Delta-style printers do seem to be racing ahead among FDM machines, and there seems to be a close battle between those products sold as kits, and those sold pre-assembled.
There isn’t much change in the Industrial 3D printer segment, with Stratasys and 3D Systems competing against each other in the top 10. A new entry is Stratasys’ Objet Alaris30 in 5th position. Material jetting and binder jetting (or plaster) systems dominate the industrial segment here.
Among trending 3D printers, there’s a new sleek-looking 3D printer that’s really keen on being first. BEETHEFIRST, an award-winning printer from Portuguese manufacturers BEEVERYCREATIVE, has grown a whopping 160 percent on 3D Hubs in just one month. That’s more than twice the growth that second-placed Prusa i3 Hephestos from bq, has had. Other 3D printers that are climbing the ladder are Printrbot’s Metal Plus, XYZ Printing’s Da Vinci 2.0, and the Chinese CTC-3D.
When it comes to cities with the most installed 3D printers, New York, Milan, Los Angeles, London and Paris have entrenched themselves into the top 5. Of note among the top 10 is Chicago, which has come out nowhere, with a high 18.2 percent growth over the last month, to grab 7th position. Europe still leads the list though, with six cities in the top 10, to four cities from the USA.
With 3D Hubs’ recent partnership with Thingiverse, the number of listed printers is rapidly rising, recently growing by 2500 printers in just one month (April). As for what these printers are most used for, scaled models lead the way in popular print categories, growing by $7.6 in average order value. Prototypes and Art/Fashion models followed close behind.
In the colorful world of 3D printing, it’s black & white at the top. White prints are in demand, making up nearly as much as green, red and blue combined.
There’s much more data to get your head into if you like, and you can find it here. With the recent launch of their ‘Teleport – 3D Print Button‘, 3D Hubs aims to make push-button 3D printing ubiquitous across the web, as it has already done with Thingiverse, SketchFab, Instructables, Autodesk, Adobe, and many more websites and online platforms. This would really accelerate network usage and growth, and incredibly, 3D Hubs isn’t far from achieving what they set out to do in April, 2013 – to provide over one billion people with access to 3D printing within 10 miles of their home.
